City Engineered Bike Trap on 17th Street Must End Say Neighbors

–Shocking injuries generated like clockwork.

“Yesterday when an ambulance came for a bike crash at 17th/Noe, the paramedics mentioned that they get called to 17th street between Noe and Church every day because of these tracks. It shouldn’t be acceptable that people are getting physically injured on a daily basis due to this known issue.” – Allison M. quoted from a Nextdoor discussion group this month.

Neighbors investigating the cause of these bike-rail knockdowns blame SFMTA for failure to either maintain or remove or mitigate in any way a set of temporary tracks installed on 17th Street back in 1972. Worse yet, SFMTA thinks four inch ruts running parallel down the center of a single traffic lane that serves cars and bicycles is just fine. Or, as Transit Director John Haley put it on June 23rd:

“After receiving your letter, we immediately inspected the track to ensure that the track and pavement was in good condition. We did find one pothole that we are repairing. The trackway however was in good condition based on the inspector by our Track Department and Maintenance of Way Director.” [sic.]

Perhaps even more disturbing is the stonewall of silence from City leaders from Mayor Ed Lee to the members of the MTA Board and management at MUNI regarding the videos of real people crashing because of those “in good condition” tracks. Not even an apology to the mother with her two small children that the SFMTA violently smashed to the ground and sent to the hospital on May 19th. No acknowledgement of the fact that six days later on May 25th we filmed a motorcycle getting knocked down by those same tracks.

This lack of empathy from our transportation monopoly is terrifying. How can they be so cruel? Who are these people? Why are they ignoring us and our pleas for help? Why doesn’t MUNI take ownership of and responsibility for the tragic situation they are inflicting on our neighborhood? And what will it take to end this bloodbath on 17th Street?

Neighbors have established interconnected tumblr & wordpress blog sites to tell our side of the story. We have posted videos and analysis and all sorts of resources to solve this tragic puzzle. Please check out our blog:OffTrackSanFrancisco.tumblr.com for a full presentation and access to all correspondence.